Hair Alge Eater?

[Silencer]

I would let it go for now. My tank also got some hair algae at about the 2 month mark. It grew a lot for about 2 weeks then kinda died away over the next 2 weeks. For a few days during the peak I would stick my arm in and grab huge bunches of it and pull it out of the tank, but that's all I ever did to combat it. Tank was fairly ugly for a few weeks but now it's all gone and I don't have any creatures that are going to starve cus they ran out of food.

 

[tkenm377]

Your best bet you be to pick out as much as you can with your hand, or get some rubble rock to deprive it of sunlight because your lights are what is fueling the growth of the hair algae; after you do this then I would suggest letting a mithrax or a lawnmower blenny go to town.

 

[Kimmy]

I assume you are refering to the sea hare starving? My hair algae is almost gone and my sea hare is munching on an algae strip hanging from a clip right now as we speak. The Tang is bugging him for it too. My tank has been up for years and it didn't have green hair algae until I bought that huge rock with the algae on it. I agree that finding the cause and fixing it is always the best solution to a problem. I was simply stating that the sea hares do love the stuff!! Kimmy

 

[Alaskan Reefer]

Harvest by hand / toothbrush, then have a mexican turbo or two finish off the job. Getting rid of the problem is definitely the priority, though.

As far as sources for phosphate, so you feed frozen shrimp or the like? Mysis, or more specifically the juice Mysis is packed in is loaded with phosphate.

 

[Silencer]

Kimmy, I didn't mean sea hares in particular but was speaking more generally about a tendency to overstock a cleanup crew to quickly combat a temporary problem.

The simple fact is that most of the time these problems go away by themselves with little or no intervention required.

 

[Kimmy]

I agree..I really do think the sea hare is a cool creature though.